Concern of statewide budget cuts hung heavy at the 28th annual AutumnFest on Saturday morning as festival participants encouraged visitors to support programs that could be eliminated.
The celebration of natural resources and agriculture was held at the Pavilion for Agricultural and Livestock Education and featured more than 60 booths of MSU groups, Michigan crop growers and agricultural research organizations. Many booths included literature about impending cuts in Michigan's budget and urged visitors to contact legislators.
Horticulture Professor and MSU Extension affiliate Ron Perry said all the groups at AutumnFest would be affected.
"There is a huge threat here," Perry said, waving his hand around to signify all the groups within the MSU Pavilion. "The governor's proposal would eliminate everything in this room."
Facing a $920 million budget deficit, Granholm has proposed possible areas in the budget to be cut, including cuts that could eliminate or drastically reduce funding for MSU Extension and the state's 15 Michigan Agricultural Experiment Stations.
Located throughout the state, MSU Extension offices supply research and development for the agriculture industry, offer education programs for youth and children and provide food-security and threat research, including the West Nile virus and the Emerald Ash Borer, MSU Extension specialist and entomology Professor George Bird said.
Both programs are a significant part of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which already was affected by cuts, said Francie Todd, spokeswoman for the college.
Perry said the effects of cutting the programs would reach far beyond Michigan's farmers. He said the landscaping industry, which is helped by Extension, would suffer.
Interest in agriculture and its issues has waned because of changes in society, he said.
"Research started when as much as 20 to 30 percent of people were involved in agriculture," he said. "And today it is less than one percent.
"We're not an agrarian society anymore."
Grand Haven-based farmer Carl DeKleine said his farm, worth about $150,000, wouldn't have succeeded without MSU Extension's research. The program, the chestnut farmer said, educated him on how to tend his crop.
"In a nutshell, without MSU Extension, we wouldn't be here," DeKleine said.
